Search This Blog

Monday, September 19, 2011

Link between crime and inflation?

"A key mechanism linking inflation to crime is the price of stolen goods," he adds. "Price increases make cheap, stolen goods more attractive and therefore strengthen incentives for those who supply the underground markets with stolen goods. The reverse occurs when inflation is low."

Color me wrong, but I have a hard time buying the fact that today's too-stupid-to-wear-a-mask robbers and killers are really spending that much time thinking about the inflation rate of the economy. I can maybe see this as a factor for certain commodities during potential bubble formation (like Gold for example), but to say total / aggregated crime rates move with inflation seems quite a bit far-fetched to me. Especially, since inflation has been on the up-tick over the past year or so....

Garth Brazelton

About Me

I work for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation as the Director of Operations and Business Systems, and I teach macroeconomics at Indiana University (Indianapolis). Previously, I was an Economist at the US DOT in Cambridge, MA. This blog does not represent the opinions of any of these organizations.